Watson rolls back the years again

It was going to take something special to take at least part of the attention away from Tiger Woods on the opening day of The Masters - but 60-year-old Tom Watson managed it.

Twelve months after crashing out of the event with an 83 - his worst round in a career at Augusta that goes back 40 years - the remarkable Watson matched his best ever score with a five-under-par 67.

And this, of course, nine months after he was one putt away from winning The Open and becoming the oldest major champion in history by 11 years. The score was then matched by England's Lee Westwood, Phil Mickelson, like Watson a two-time champion, and YE Yang, the Korean who pushed Woods into second place at golf's last major.

As for the world number one, he had to be thrilled first by the ovation he received and then by covering the first six holes in one under, but not so much by the banner trailing a light plane that circled overhead.

It read "Tiger - did you mean bootyism?", a play on the fact that Woods says he has returned to Buddhism in his attempt to mend his ways after the shocking sex scandal that erupted last November.

This is his first tournament since then and he appeared to take no notice as he followed two opening pars with a pitch to five feet on the third for his first birdie since he won the Australian Masters 144 days ago.

Two days earlier, Watson had told Jack Nicklaus at the champions dinner that Augusta National had become too long for him.

But Watson, who has not made the halfway cut at the course for the last eight years, did not have a bogey on his card and picked up strokes at the first, third, 15th, 16th and 18th for another day he will never forget.

At the other end of the age scale, 16-year-old Italian Matteo Manassero, the youngest player in Masters history thanks to his British Amateur triumph last June, showed what a prodigious talent he is by signing for a 71.

That was a better score than any British amateur has produced in Masters history.